From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Ishmael Beah

Start date: August 6, 2020

Finish date: August 9, 2020

Discussion: 2020 Read Harder Challenge

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2020 Read Harder Challenge

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* 2020 Read Harder Challenge
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last updated Dec 06, 2019 03:56PM

Task #20: Read a middle grade book that doesn’t take place in the U.S. or the UK
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last updated Dec 31, 2020 02:39PM

What Members Thought

Aug 13, 2007 Kerry rated it liked it · review of another edition

It puts civil war into a concrete context. If you want to read behind the headlines...this story will give you an account that stays with you.

While this book tackles the heavy themes of child soldering, civil war and losing parents...it is told from a young adult's perspective looking back on his experiences. There is a directness and honesty in it that is simple. It is not preachy or overbearing. It is simply a boy's account of an extremely difficult and tumultuous period in his life. I would h ...more

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Jul 07, 2015 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, nonfiction, kindle, book-club

A Long Way Gone is a hard book to critique because it's an important story to tell, but it could have been told a lot better than it was. It's the memoir of a young teenager who was forcibly recruited to join the army in Sierra Leone; it was published more than a decade after the events described, but I think the author was still too close to the events to be able to tell the story in all the detail it needed. For this book to resonate with and affect the reader, it needed a lot of details and s A Long Way Gone is a hard book to critique because it's an important story to tell, but it could have been told a lot better than it was. It's the memoir of a young teenager who was forcibly recruited to join the army in Sierra Leone; it was published more than a decade after the events described, but I think the author was still too close to the events to be able to tell the story in all the detail it needed. For this book to resonate with and affect the reader, it needed a lot of details and some sense of the author's emotions, but what should have been the most poignant parts of the book - the time he actually spent as a soldier - were hazy, like he still wasn't ready to tell the whole story or open up fully about what had happened during that time. Other parts of the book, especially the time he spent in a reformatory camp after leaving the army, were told in much more detail - in contrast, it really felt like Beah was unable or unwilling to describe his time as a soldier.

It also doesn't help that the book is written at a pretty low reading level. It's not advertised as being a book written for children, and the subject matter is obviously very dark, but just in terms of reading comprehension I would guess the reading level for this book is probably late elementary. This means that the book is a fast read, but again, the reader just can't connect very deeply; it feels like everything is being told too simplistically.

The book is also frustrating in that it ends before the story is over. Beah mentions at various points that he ended up in the US with an adoptive mother, but he ends the story while he's still trying to get out of Africa. He's made it out of Sierra Leone and into Guinea, but still seems to have many hurdles before him if he's ever going to make it to the US. I really don't know whether he left off so abruptly because he plans to publish a second memoir that picks up where this one ends, or if somehow he really felt that this was the best place to end things, but it feels abrupt and unfinished.

There has been a lot of controversy about the accuracy of Beah's story - not about whether it happened at all, but there have been arguments that his timeline is off and that he spent only a couple of months, not a couple of years, as a soldier. Honestly, the parts about him being a soldier were so hazy that I'm not sure if it matters if his timeline is off - this is still a tale worth telling, and I just wish he'd been able to do a better job of telling it well. Maybe someday he'll publish another memoir when he's had more time to come to terms with what happened to him and be able to allow himself to go into more detail about his experiences. ...more

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Apr 19, 2007 Kaitlin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, africa, memoir, favorites

Another African memoir and another moving story. The page length is short, but the story stays with you for awhile.

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Nov 17, 2007 Marisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: commonbook-07-08, ya, grown-up-books

This book is so, so sad. It took me longer to read than I would have expected from 225 page book -- perhaps because it was so darn heartbreaking. It's uplifting in a way too, though -- for one thing, I took comfort in the fact that UNICEF and other huge global help organizations actually do make a difference in individual lives. I know that sounds really cynical, but I'm kind of a cynical person...in an idealistic kind of way.
I would not be surprised at all if this were selected for next year's ...more

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